


made for sunny days

by mimizans



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Demisexual Character, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-19 03:39:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5952343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimizans/pseuds/mimizans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey returns to the Resistance base, Luke Skywalker in tow. Finn learns to garden. Poe is a lot less slick than you'd think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. here to stay

**Author's Note:**

> the idea for this fic came from a tumblr post i made about aro ace rey and demi poe, the loves of my life, and finn, the love of theirs. thanks to audrey for inquiring about my progress that one time; i kept working on this because i knew you were waiting with bated breath
> 
> like the tags say, this is slice of life. the parts might not follow each other chronologically, but i will note that if it happens. also, in b4 "THAT'S NOT HOW THE FORCE WORKS"
> 
> enjoy my friends

Rey breathes deeply as she steps off the Millenium Falcon. The morning air on Abrion Major is crisp and earthy, carrying notes of plant decay and river water, and it makes her newly-short hair flutter around her chin. All around are the sounds of the airfield: engines revving, mechanics and pilots calling back and forth, droids and transports beeping in every register. The Resistance base is buzzing with activity even at this early hour, which impresses Rey even as it thwarts her attempt to avoid a crowd for their arrival. No wonder Luke had looked vaguely amused when she’d told him her plan. The fact that he can see the future and she can’t is getting annoying, mostly because Luke never bothers to tell her anything. Rey can’t wait for the day when she gets to smile mysteriously and withhold information that could save people from potentially embarrassing situations. 

Still, she can’t be too mad, because as soon as she steps off the Falcon’s loading ramp, Finn is running towards her, dragging a laughing Poe Dameron along with him, BB-8 spinning madly at their heels. “Rey!” Finn calls, the joy evident in his voice. “Rey, you’re back!”

For all that Finn is running as fast as he can, BB-8 actually reaches her first, and almost knocks Poe and Finn over to do it. Rey appreciates that kind of commitment, so she makes sure to crouch down to BB-8’s level as it beeps wildly at her, trying to tell her everything that she’s missed so quickly that she’s only catching every other word.

“Hey, BB-8, buddy,” Poe calls as he and Finn skid to a stop in front of the loading ramp. “Give her a minute before you drown her in base gossip! She just got back from her working vacation, you know.” Poe winks at her, and Rey grins back at him. 

“I’m so glad to see you!” Finn says, sidestepping BB-8 to get to Rey and ignoring the droid’s comically offended series of beeps. He wraps his arms around her and Rey melts into his embrace. She’d forgotten how good it felt to be hugged, especially by Finn. Training with Luke had been enlightening, sure, but it’s not like they were doing a ton of hugging. A lot of lifting rocks with their minds, yes. Hugging, no.

“I missed you,” Rey says against Finn’s neck, and she can feel his answering smile where his face is pressed against her hair. She’s told him that over comms, sure, but it’s just not the same as saying it in person, especially when she knows she’s here to stay for the foreseeable future.

“Me too, Rey,” Finn says. He squeezes her tightly before pulling back, and Rey is both surprised and honored to see that he’s misty-eyed. 

“Oh, no, no, don’t cry,” Rey says, partially out of sympathy and partially because she has no idea what to do if Finn actually starts crying. Other people’s tears aren’t something she has a whole lot of experience with, so she panics momentarily as she tries to think of what an appropriate response might be. She reaches up to wipe clumsily at Finn’s eyes with the sleeve of her robe. At their feet, BB-8 chirps comfortingly and rolls against her shin.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rey sees Poe starting to back away. As engrossed as she is in Finn, it’s hard to miss Poe doing anything in that bright orange flight suit. He should know better than to try to sneak. “Poe Dameron,” she calls out. Finn finishes wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand and turns in her arms to look at Poe, who freezes, smiling sheepishly. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Poe gestures with a thumb towards his distinctive X-Wing. “We’ve got maneuvers this morning, and since I’m leading them, I can’t really be late, you know? Plus you guys seemed busy, and I didn’t want to interrupt...” Poe grimaces, glancing at BB-8 as if looking for some back-up. The droid just rocks back and forth, its visual sensor whirring as it focuses on Poe. BB-8 doesn’t have the capacity to narrow its eyes, but Rey swears that’s what it would be doing right now if it could.

Rey rolls her eyes and disentangles herself from Finn, who laughs brightly when she sprints towards Poe.

Poe looks shocked for a moment, but Rey is used to causing that reaction in people, so she doesn’t pay it much mind. She _is_ very grateful that he has the wherewithal to catch her when she jumps at him. With his arms secure around her waist and hers looped around his neck, he takes the opportunity to briefly spin her around, which makes her laugh. 

When they come to a stop, Rey finds Poe smiling down at her, his face open and warm. She is reminded viscerally of those weeks she spent sitting next to Finn in the infirmary in the wake of Starkiller’s destruction. She’d had no idea what to do with herself; she had been aching from Han’s death more than was probably logical, and there had been nothing that she could do for Finn except sit next to his bed and hope against hope that she didn’t lose him too. Poe had been in and out of the infirmary, always looking frazzled and harried, but always with a comforting smile for Rey and a soft squeeze for Finn’s limp hand.

One night, Rey had fallen asleep in the uncomfortable chair that she camped in during the day and had woken to find the lights in the infirmary dimmed and Poe draping a blanket over her. He had smiled and apologized for waking her, but had Rey reached out for his hand when he tried to leave. So he’d stayed. Pulled up a chair, listened to Rey tell him about how she and Finn met. When she heard Poe laugh softly at the image of BB-8’s righteous indignation at finding Finn wearing Poe’s jacket, Rey had felt the tight knot of anxiety and fear in her chest loosen just a little bit.

“It’s good to see you,” she tells Poe now, grinning up at him.

“Likewise,” he tells her, and this close she can see the slightest gap in his front teeth. It’s strangely charming. “I wasn’t kidding though, I really do need to go awe the new recruits into respecting me.” He steps back and drops his hands from Rey’s waist, then takes a moment to look past Rey’s shoulder and smile at Finn. “You guys should stop by the hangar later though, okay? I know BB-8 is just bursting to tell you some stories.”

BB-8 beeps out a cheerful agreement as it rolls to Poe’s side. “See you later, Rey, Finn!” Poe says, giving them a gesture that’s half wave and half salute. Finn returns it, which makes Poe laugh as he turns and walks away. Rey doesn’t miss the way that Finn’s eyes linger on Poe’s retreating form long after he should’ve looked away. 

“So!” she says loudly, causing Finn to start slightly. “What’s the plan?” She glances back at the ship, from which Luke has yet to emerge. She has no idea what he’s waiting for; he’s probably just panicking about seeing his sister, which Rey thinks is silly. But then again, she hasn’t been voluntarily living as a hermit on a moor for fifteen years, so Luke obviously handles stress differently than she does. “Luke the Great and Powerful says I’m free until after lunch today.”

“I thought maybe I could show you around,” Finn tells her, gesturing back at the base. “It’s set up way differently than the base on D’Qar, and I wouldn’t want you to get lost.” He pauses for a moment and scrunches his nose. “Wait, can Jedi even get lost?”

“I don’t have some kind of all-knowing internal Force Map,” Rey says with a laugh as Finn begins to lead her towards the bustling concrete building visible past the airfield.

“That would be pretty cool though, you have to admit,” Finn says, grinning at her.

“Yeah, it definitely would be,” Rey agrees.

-

The base, it turns out, is much bigger than the one on D’Qar, and as far as Rey can tell the underground tunnels run for miles beyond the edge of the base itself. Everywhere she looks there are people, officers and technicians, support and medical staff, each one of them rushing around looking busy and determined. Rey doesn’t think she’s ever seen this many people in one place, each one moving with a sense of higher purpose. She might have envied them that purpose not long ago. Now she’s got more purpose than she knows what to do with.

Finn shows her the cafeteria, and the laundry, and the officer’s lounge. (“We’re not technically supposed to be here,” Finn tells her as she flops down onto a soft, low chair, “but Poe gave me his door code, so.” Finn looks so smug that Rey almost laughs at him.) He makes sure that she knows where the refreshers are even though she tells him she’ll probably just use the one on the Falcon, and he stands politely outside as she explores the large, white-paneled room, filled with steam from the morning’s showers.

It’s mid-morning by the time Finn and Rey find their way back to the airfield. The fighters have returned from maneuvers, and the tarmac is filled with pilots and mechanics making tweaks to engines and electrical panels. Finn and Rey have barely spotted Poe’s X-wing in the shade of Hangar 3 before BB-8 is rolling towards them, happily beeping the binary for their names and saying that it has missed them.

“It’s only been a few hours, BB-8,” Rey calls with a laugh, and then laughs even harder when BB-8 responds that a few hours is a long time to be in an X-wing with Poe, who is a very sweaty human, and who talks to himself instead of to BB-8! The droid seems very indignant regarding the last point, and it wheels around to look accusingly at Poe, who has just appeared from the cockpit of his plane.

“What is BB-8 saying?” Poe says as the three of them approach, looking at the droid suspiciously. “Something kind, I hope.”

“Just that you’re sweaty and you talk to yourself,” Rey assures him.

“Aw, thanks buddy,” Poe says, only half sarcastic, and shrugs out of the top half of his flight suit, tying the arms around his waist. “Are you two finished with your tour?”

“Yup!” Finn says. “I, uh, showed Rey the officers’ lounge. I hope you don’t mind.” Finn looks a little worried, which Rey finds hilarious. She’s getting the feeling that Finn could ask Poe if he’d like to be frozen in carbonite and Poe would be nothing but excited about the prospect. 

“Not at all,” Poe says, stripping off his flight gloves. “Just don’t go throwing a raging party in there, okay? They might revoke _my_ lounge clearance for that. Put me on janitorial duty.” He laughs low in his throat at his own joke, which Rey thinks is sort of cute in a nerdy way; apparently so does Finn, because Rey can feel the heat coming off of him, like his whole body is blushing. When she elbows him gently in the side he jumps slightly and shoots her a guilty-looking glance.

“Well, hey,” Finn says, a little too quick, “is there anything we can do to help you? With your X-wing or, um... something?”

“I’m gonna be doing some routine maintenance,” Poe says, shrugging. “Pretty boring stuff. I don’t know if you guys will wanna stick around for it, honestly. Why don’t you take BB-8 and go get some lunch?”

“No, no, we’d love to stay!” Finn says, simultaneously taking Rey’s hand and answering for her. Rey rolls her eyes but doesn’t protest; she just threads her fingers through Finn’s. “Whatever you need, I’m yours. I mean, um. We’re yours.” He gestures vaguely at Rey with his free hand. She gives Poes a little wave.

Rey expects Poe to laugh, or grin, or wink, or one of the other hundred other completely charming things she’s seen him do in the short time she’s known him. What she doesn’t expect is for Poe’s cheeks to turn slightly pink and for his fingers to twitch reflexively at his sides, so, of course, that’s what happens. “Um, yeah, sure!” Poe says, his voice slightly higher than usual. Poe looks shocked at his own lack of cool, and he very obviously clears his throat before he continues. “If you guys want to hang out, that’s fine. BB-8 can tell you his gossip anywhere, right?” BB-8 whoops in affirmation.

So that’s how they end up sitting on the permacrete floor of the hangar while Poe tinkers with the propulsion system on his X-wing. Mostly Rey sits with Finn’s head in her lap and translates BB-8’s rapid binary for him, laughing when he complains that BB-8 is editorializing and that this-or-that outrageous plot point definitely didn’t happen that way. Occasionally Poe will motion Rey over to show her something interesting on a readout, or he’ll ask them for a tool from the box at Finn’s feet. Rey always plucks the tool out, for expediency’s sake (because Finn is talented at many things, but, as she knows first hand, identifying tools is not one of them), but she hands it to Finn to be delivered and then watches the awkward and stilted transfer of the item with unfettered delight.

After one particularly awful hand-off, during which both Finn and Poe fumble the socket wrench and then barely miss knocking heads when they both bend down to pick it up, Rey is still smiling when Finn returns to her side. He sits next to her cross-legged, and when Rey touches his feelings, just slightly, he feels confused and shy and hopeful and happy. He leans against her side, and Rey loves him so much.

“What are you smiling about?” he asks her, jostling her lightly.

“Nothing,” Rey says, reflexively, and then amends her statement. “Not nothing. I’m just... happy.” It’s an odd realization to come to, mostly because she’s almost never had the opportunity before this moment to feel so purely and incandescently happy and to actually register that feeling. She’s never had a name for it, or a baseline with which to compare it. It’s probably silly, she thinks, to be so happy about sitting on the floor of a hangar, sweat prickling her forehead as the sun gets higher in the sky, but as Rey well knows, it’s sometimes the simple things that make for the happiest moments. So she revels in this one. She’s safe, and she’s not hungry, and there’s a warm breeze kicking in from the ocean. She watches Poe lean down to get a closer look at some circuit, a slight frown on his face, and she listens to BB-8 chattering along next to her. She feels the warm line of Finn’s body next to hers, listens to the steady ebb and flow of his breathing. Rey reaches out with the Force; she can feel the satisfying pump of Finn’s heart in his chest, and she can see the light that surrounds him, glowing gold and letting off sparks.

“Happy, huh?” Finn says, and tucks his head against her shoulder. “You know, I think I am too.”

“I’m glad,” Rey says, and means it as much as she’s ever meant anything in her life. Then, noticing the sun’s position in the sky, she sighs. “I think I have to go,” she says, gently dislodging Finn and getting to her feet.

“Jedi stuff?” Finn asks, peering up at her.

Rey nods. “I’ll find you later, okay?”

“Sure thing,” Finn says, smiling at her, and Rey gives him back her best grin.

“Bye BB-8, bye Poe!” she calls, already heading towards the hangar’s wide doors.

“Off to commune with the Force, huh?” Poe says, his head appearing from behind the wing of his fighter. “Good luck!”

“And may the Force be with you,” Rey tells him, mock-serious. He laughs and waves her off, and after blowing a kiss to a beeping BB-8, Rey heads out into the afternoon sun.


	2. half acre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn picks up an unexpected hobby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my grandparents owned a farm but i know absolutely nothing about farming or gardening. is this what it means to be a millennial

Finn doesn’t have a hobby. Which would be fine, except that everyone else has one. 

It’s not that Finn’s keen to follow a crowd; he couldn’t do it in the First Order, and that’s what landed him with this bunch of rebels and reprobates in the first. No, it’s just that everyone seems to have so much _fun_ , and Finn is sharply aware that he could probably use more of that. 

Karé paints, Iolo bakes, and Jessika Pava has organized some kind of rec league devoted to a sport that involves long sticks with baskets on the ends and a ball flying through the air at an alarming speed. Snap creates intricate model ships with his large, careful hands, and Poe strums softly on a string instrument from his homeworld. Even Rey, who spends so much of her time meditating in the woods with Luke Skywalker and practicing with her kick-ass laser sword, reconstructed an old gaming system she found on board the Millennium Falcon, set it up in the lounge, and now challenges everyone who walks in to try to beat her. 

So Finn decides to get a hobby. He rules out things like painting and poetry, which he thinks could get pretty dark pretty fast. He’s not musical, and he’s not mechanically inclined. He played Rey on her game once and got wiped out, and no way is he going anywhere near Jessika’s death-ball field. It’s not until he and Poe visit the agricultural block at the east end of the base that Finn thinks he may have finally found something he can get behind.

Poe had seemed oddly excited when Finn had asked him if they might check out the agricultural block together. Finn can’t understand why; he’s fully aware that agricultural technology isn’t mind-blowingly interesting for most people. He’s always happy for Poe’s company, though, and it makes something in Finn’s chest flutter oddly to know that Poe wants to spend time with him too.

The agricultural block is a short distance from the main base and is full of carefully laid-out greenhouses. It’s where the Resistance grows fruits, vegetables, and clothing fibers in an effort to be self-sustaining. They grow 4 varieties of lettuce, 6 breeds of apples, 5 types of grain, and a plethora of other produce, ranging from pears to H’nemthe yams. Finn knows because he’s studied the area’s layout, semantics, and operating procedures, curious as to how the Resistance was getting such a large amount of food from such a small space. They really do have an ingenious system, Finn thinks. Small plots are stacked on top of each other like building blocks at the east end of the base, each encased in light-sensitive plastic and carefully monitored to regulate temperature, moisture, and sunlight. 

Time compression fields are using to speed up the growth process, allowing the Resistance to create far more food than they would normally be capable of doing. Finn was shocked by the use of time compression technology at first; the tech is nowhere near as well-vetted as hyperspace travel, even though they operate by parallel principles. Still, he imagines that the Resistance is willing to use whatever technology is at its disposal in order to feed and clothe its members. Finn just hopes that one of the fields doesn’t go haywire someday and send them and the rest of Abrion Major hurtling through space-time. 

It’s when he and Poe are on their way to the block that they stumble across an odd patch of dirt sitting about twenty feet away from the encroaching woods at the base’s northeast corner. It looks like it was once used to grow something, but has been abandoned in favor of more expedient methods. There’s a dilapidated little fence around the perimeter of the plot, once white but now faded to a pleasant cream. 

“What is this?” Finn asks Poe, nonplussed.

Poe’s brow furrows. “The General told me they did some minor crop testing on this planet back when it was a Rebellion base, but no one’s used it for years. I guess this must be what’s leftover.”

Finn raises his eyebrows. “No one’s using it? It’s just sitting here?”

Poe shrugs and wanders towards the fence. “Guess so. Why?”

“It just seems like a waste, is all,” Finn replies, joining Poe at the fence and peering down at the still-rich soil. 

Poe turns to him and smiles. “Well, _you_ should use it then,” he says, knocking their shoulders together softly.

“What do you mean?” Finn asks, tilting his head at Poe questioningly. 

“I mean that you should garden here, if you don’t like seeing it go unused,” Poe says, gesturing at the plot. “Maybe it could even be your hobby.” Poe’s eyes are twinkling, but Finn can tell that he’s only half-joking. And half-joking, Finn has learned, means just as much as dead serious to Poe Dameron. 

“Gardening?” Finn asks. He must sound very unconvinced, because Poe laughs brightly.

“Gardening,” Poe confirms, nodding. He looks down at the dirt, thoughtful. “My dad’s had a garden back on Yavin IV for years. Flowers, herbs, whatever he wants to grow there. He gets to decide everything that goes into it. It might be nice, to have that kind of control over even a small thing.”

Finn smiles wryly at Poe. “That’s a metaphor, isn’t it?”

“Sort of,” Poe admits, a little sheepish. “You might really like it, though. The results are tangible, you know? You’ll get to touch the life you’ve helped create.” Poe looks a little bit wistful, but he cringes slightly when he finishes speaking, like he knows that he sounds ridiculous. Finn’s noticed that for all the confidence and curt eloquence Poe exhibits in dangerous situations, he has a tendency to become a sentimental rambler when given the slightest opportunity. Finn thinks it’s partially because Poe likes to hear his own voice, but Finn doesn’t really mind. It’s honestly novel to have people like Poe and Rey who actually want to talk to him, who seek him out for conversation and then care what he has to say. Poe talks about everything: his day, his family, his childhood, funny or harrowing stories that he’s lived. These are the things, Finn thinks, that make Poe who he is, but Finn doesn’t have that kind of galaxy built around him. He doesn’t inhabit the kind of rich tapestry that Poe does, and it’s nice sometimes to just soak it up and imagine that one day he will be able to build something similar: family and traditions and stories passed down through song. 

“This is getting deep, man,” Finn says with a smile, partially to let Poe off the hook and partially to derail his own train of thought, which has turned decidedly melancholy. 

“Well, you know me,” Poe laughs, palming the back of his neck awkwardly. “I always know just what to say.” He clears his throat, and then a sudden grin spreads over his face. “Oh! Hey, if you _are_ interested in setting up shop here, I think I have the perfect thing to get you started.” 

“What’s that?” Finn asks.

“A plant!” Poe says. “You’ve probably seen it in my room.”

Finn frowns for a moment. “The red one?” he says, finally. “On the windowsill?”

Poe nods. “It’s called szechual,” he says. “Native to Yavin IV. It’s pretty hardy. I mean, it would have to be since I forget to water it for weeks at a time,” he laughs. “I figure it’ll be as good a place as any to start.”

“You’d just give me your plant?” Finn asks. He’s touched by the offer, and he is struck, not for the first time, by the generosity of Poe’s spirit. He probably doesn’t even realize how much little things like this mean to Finn, but Finn is still awed by the fact that someone could give a gift and not expect anything in return. 

“Yeah, buddy,” Poe says, putting a hand on Finn’s shoulder and smiling softly at him. “I know you’ll take care of it.”

A grin spreads over Finn’s face almost entirely without his permission. He’s sure it’s embarrassingly wide, but he can’t quite bring himself to care. 

-

Once he’s away from the high wattage of Poe’s encouraging smile, Finn quickly realizes that he has absolutely no idea how to garden. He’d never so much as seen a flower in real life before he left the First Order, and now he’s supposed to grow them? Saying he’d give gardening a try while Poe was standing there beaming at him was one thing, but actually getting down to the business of it is another entirely. 

Finn decides that the best place to start is the base library. Since he knows, oh, less than nothing about flowers, some basic knowledge will probably be helpful. 

It’s slow going. He’s pretty sure the librarian, a very stern looking lieutenant who does double-duty as a code cracker, thinks he’s crazy when he comes around asking about growing flowers, but she helps him navigate the information terminals anyway. Finn spends way too long lost down a rabbit hole of the dangers and uses of creeping vines, which he finds fascinating, but eventually he leaves the library armed with holopads filled to the brim with everything a beginning gardener could need to know.

Now, he needs supplies. The basic metal implements - shovel, trowel, watering can - are easy enough to fashion in the metal shop, but actually finding plants is a little bit trickier. Finn has to get creative to find companions for his szechual, which has been carefully planted in a place of honor in the middle of the plot. 

(The exchange of the plant was probably a little more emotional than Poe expected, but when Finn had seen Poe standing in the doorway of his room with a smile on his face and a plant festooned with bursts of tiny red blossoms in his hands, Finn’s instinctive reaction had been to hug him. It probably makes sense, Finn thinks, that after a lifetime of being denied physical affection he’s thrown himself into it with gusto, but that doesn’t make him feel any less awkward about his tendency to spontaneously shower his friends with hugs and hand-holds.

Poe never seems to mind, though. He couldn’t hug back because of the plant in his hands. Instead, he had turned his face against Finn’s neck so that the tickle of his breath made Finn laugh.) 

Some plants Finn finds growing wild around the base, leftover from failed attempts at landscaping, and he carefully transfers clippings to his garden. Corporal Lun, from the long-range sensor lab, has seeds he’s willing to part with, as well as some plants in need of good homes. His roommate is on the warpath, he explains, because he has so many plants in the bunk that they’d been written up for posing an environmental hazard. Finn gratefully accepts the gifts, and leaves Lun’s room laden with greenery.

Soon enough, Finn’s garden is bright with flowers: fragrant velanie, cloud-like gigglebuds, sturdy flandorians, and even a little purple passion plant that he’d found languishing along the side of Hangar 3. Damp patches are scattered throughout the plot, and if Finn’s lucky the seeds planted there will soon bloom and reveal green daisies, puffballs, and nova lilies. 

Finn knows that he’s thrown himself into this endeavor with an uncommon amount of enthusiasm, but Poe’s gardening metaphor, while overwrought, may have been apt. Finn’s never created anything with his own two hands that wasn’t meant to blow someone’s head off. He’s never gotten to make aesthetic choices, or to love something simple just because he can. 

So he gardens. Finn doesn’t have a ton of free time (there is a war on, after all), but he makes time every morning and evening to check on the plot, oftentimes bringing Rey along. Finn thought her reaction to seeing the green of Takodana was poignant, but he was still completely unprepared for the look of unbridled joy that swept over her face the first time she saw the garden. 

Rey carries so much on her shoulders. So much responsibility, so many expectations. Nothing less than the fate of the galaxy. When she’s among the flowers, though, all of that melts away and she looks like the little girl she must’ve been on Jakku, red-faced and elated at finding a weed that managed to survive the scorching desert heat. Each flower gets its share of loving attention from Rey, but her favorites are the green daisies. Probably because they pay attention back, Finn thinks. Rey smiles down at the daisies for long minutes as they bloom under her attention like the other flowers bloom for the sun. 

When the puffballs start to bloom, Rey insists that they lay in the dirt on their stomachs and inspect the plants’ progress. She sighs happily as she takes in each small detail of the puffball: its fuzzy stem and round, velvety leaves; its bright orange petals, so fine that when viewed together the flower looks like a little ball of fluff. “It’s so wonderful,” Rey remarks, reaching out a gentle finger to touch the plant’s leaf, “that you can put something so tiny in the dirt, and if you love it, and care for it, it will grow into something... beautiful.” She looks so enthralled, so honored to be witnessing this miracle, that Finn swears he can see her glowing. 

Rey likes to take little souvenirs with her when she leaves; nothing big, just stray leaves that have fallen to the ground or blooms that are beginning to wilt. Finn doesn’t comment, but warmth fills his chest when he notices that Rey likes to tuck the leaves and flowers into her hair and braid like bits of ribbon. Seeing her flitting around base with his flowers in her hair makes Finn sure that all his work on the garden has been worth it.

-

Poe, the catalyst for the whole thing, has been conspicuously absent from any and all garden proceedings, always begging off when Finn invited him to come and take a look at how the plot was faring. “It’s yours,” Poe had said firmly, more than once. He’d said the words heavily, like they meant something more than he could articulate, but Finn had no idea what that something more might be.

Two months in, Poe finally agrees to visit the garden with him. 

It’s early evening late in the spring, and the last of winter’s chill a faded memory. The flowers have all come in nicely (even the lilies, which were touch and go for a while; Finn had had no idea what he was doing wrong until he realized that the flandorian’s sturdy roots were encroaching on the lily’s space. Some shuffling had proved helpful, and the delicate purple passion turned out to be a much better neighbor for the nova lily.) When Poe sees the garden he smiles so widely that it must hurt his face, but he continues to wear his grin the whole time Finn enthusiastically explains, in what is probably very boring detail, the needs and characteristics of each of the plants. He almost rolls his eyes at himself (he’s getting all worked up over plants, seriously), but soon his smile is almost wide enough to match Poe’s.

Poe makes his way around the garden fence and stands in front of the szechual, its bright red flowers turned even more vibrant in the late afternoon light. “Gardening’s turned out to be pretty fun, huh?” he says, turning to face Finn and leaning his side against the fence. 

“It has its attractions,” Finn admits. He’s still smiling, but it’s softer now, a match to the fading light.

Poe laughs low in his throat, and it makes Finn’s fingers tingle oddly. “I’m just glad you found something you like to do,” Poe says, gesturing at the garden. “This is really beautiful, Finn. I’m proud of you.”

Finn feels his face heat up. “Yeah?” he says. Trying to avoid looking at Poe, he bends over the fence to pull a dead bud away from the szechual. When he stands up, he realizes that they’re standing much too close. But Poe doesn’t move away, so neither does Finn. 

“Yeah,” Poe says, and Finn must’ve asked a question to get that response, but he can’t quite remember what that question might’ve been at the present moment, because all he can think about is how close he is to Poe’s body. Poe’s face. Poe’s mouth in particular.

Poe starts to lean in. The connection between them feels gravitational, like Finn couldn’t pull away if he tried. Maybe this is inevitable, he thinks. Maybe this was always meant to happen. It’s so simple, but it can mean so much. A kiss. From Poe.

Finn’s brain comes to a screeching halt. He should probably be doing something, leaning forward or putting his hands on Poe or something, _anything_ , but he can’t get himself to move. He’s sure that his eyes must be saucer-wide.

Suddenly, Poe stops leaning forward, his momentum arrested. 

He looks confused, or apologetic, maybe? Embarrassed? Finn’s not sure. “It’s getting late,” Poe says, shifting back on his heels and out of Finn’s space. Finn feels the loss of proximity sharply, like part of his atmosphere has been sucked away. “Time to get back to base, huh?” 

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” Finn says, the words coming out slightly breathless. He’s still staring at Poe’s lips.

Those lips turn up in a warm, familiar smile. “Come on,” Poe says, gesturing back towards the main base. He hesitates for a long moment, then he holds out his hand. 

Finn is terribly confused. He has no idea what’s going on, or what Poe is trying to say, or where any of this is going. He’s confused, and he should probably be terrified. But when Poe’s standing there like that, smiling and backlit by the rich orange of the setting sun, Finn is powerless to do anything but close the gap between them.

He takes Poe’s hand, and off they go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) jessica pava #confirmed for lacrosse lesbian  
> 3) in the original draft of this it was also made clear that kare is the georgia o'keefe of this universe in that she paints suggestive floral forms  
> 2) all of the plants mentioned are actual plants in the star wars universe, and szechual is indeed native to yavin iv; i couldn't find a description of it, so i basically described lantana lmao
> 
> next up: rey and luke sit in near silence for 2500 words


	3. brightly wound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Luke meditate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy valentine's day, here's a couple of aromantics talking in the woods

Luke takes Rey out into the forest. It’s still and dark, the ground soft with decaying leaves. The only noise beyond the crunch of their footsteps are the ambient tones of the woods, bugs and birds and the wind whistling through the trees above them.

“Where are we going?” Rey asks Luke, carefully picking her way through the husk of a downed log.

Luke glances back at her but doesn’t answer. Rey sighs and fingers her braid. It’s become a nervous habit rather quickly, but Rey likes having the reminder of who she is now. 

Luke told her that during the time of Jedi Temple, padawan learners had kept their hair short and had worn long, thin braids to symbolize the growth that they still had to achieve. Luke seldom bestows these kinds of facts on Rey, but when he does it’s with a bemused sort of benevolence, like he understands why they fascinate her so: when you grow up isolated, any piece of your history that you can cling to becomes precious. Rey may never know the history of her family, but she will learn everything that she can about the history of the Jedi Order.

Maz Kanata was right, Rey knows now. The belonging that she has always longed for doesn’t rest with the family that left her on Jakku and never came back. But Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi Knight... he can give her something that she desperately craves: a history. He can tell her about the ones who came before her, the padawans and the Knights and the Masters, the traditions and the stories. Suddenly, after a life spent adrift, Rey has been given a robe, a history, and a purpose.

Unfortunately for her, Luke isn’t the most talkative guy in the galaxy. When Rey had heard stories about Luke Skywalker, legendary Jedi Knight, Rebellion Hero, he’d always seemed to her to be a joyful person. A talker, a laugher, the kind who’d get along with anybody. The Luke she knows is different: his face is kept carefully blank and he measures his words out by teaspoons, like each syllable costs him something. Rey has a universe’s worth of questions that she’d like to ask Luke. She’s tried, too. Luke is simply disinclined to answer her. He’s been all but mute ever since she met him, and Rey’s not sure if he’s always like this now or if his reticence is reserved especially for her. 

“Is there any question I could ask that you’d answer?” Rey muses out loud. “Like, what if I asked you if the sky on this planet was blue? That seems like a pretty easy question to answer. No universal secrets there.” Rey knows that she’s probably pushing her luck, but being out here in the near silence of the forest with a completely silent man is starting to grate on her nerves. She wishes she was back at the base, laughing with Finn and soaking up the sounds of frenetic, focused activity all around her.

“Yes, Rey,” Luke says without turning around, and Rey all but jumps at the sound of his voice. She hadn’t been expecting a response. “The sky here is blue.” He doesn’t sound annoyed, just faintly amused. 

“He speaks!” Rey says, frowning at the back of his head. “I was beginning to think you were ignoring me.”

“I’m not doing anything of the kind,” Luke says, just loud enough for her to hear. 

“Then why do you only respond to a fourth of the things I say?” Rey asks, jogging slightly to catch up to him.

Luke pauses to allow her to reach him. “Because some questions don’t need answers. Or you need to find out the answers yourself. Or, if you were patient for another two minutes, the answer would become obvious.” He’s not smiling, but Rey can hear the laughter in his voice.

A clearing comes into view several yards ahead of them. It’s dappled with sunlight, a pleasant, soft glow suffusing the area. Mossy green rocks are arranged in a perfect circle in the center of the clearing, and Rey notices that the surrounding trees seem to lean back from the area oddly. 

“What is this place?” she asks softly as she and Luke step into the clearing. The area seems to demand quiet reverence, and Rey doesn’t dare raise her voice above an awed whisper.

“The planet’s electromagnetic field converges in this place,” Luke replies, walking slowly around the circle of rocks. “It creates an area that’s charged with energy.”

“The Force,” Rey says, gazing up at the near translucent canopy of green above them.

“Correct,” Luke says, taking a seat on one of the rocks. “Especially on a planet like this, which is full of organic matter. The trees, the animals, rivers, the dirt itself. Even our friends back at the Resistance base. The Force is pure energy, and it’s the basis of everything that exists on this planet. And for all that the Force is a source of raw power, it will bow to order. So instead of hanging in the air, so to speak, the energy becomes part of the fabric of the planet. It gets funneled through the planet’s field and passes through a central point.” Luke gestures around the clearing. “Here.”

Rey gapes at Luke. “That’s the most you’ve ever said to me. Ever!” she emphasizes.

Luke raises an eyebrow at her. “Take a seat,” he says, gesturing at the rock directly opposite him.

“Meditation?” Rey asks, settling cross-legged onto the rock and resigning herself to a long day of communing with the universe.

“Of a kind,” Luke says, and closes his eyes. Rey sighs and follows suit.

She sometimes finds it hard to meditate properly. It’s not that she doesn’t try, it’s just that “emptying yourself and allowing the outside in,” as Luke had once described it, is both a very abstract concept and a pain in the ass to do. Rey had spent her whole life jealously guarding everything that she had and everything that she was, so being asked to let go of all that presents a unique challenge for her. Meditation is a skill, she knows, just like flying a ship or fighting with a staff, and she’ll get better at it the more she practices. So far, however, practice hasn’t been doing her much good. Mostly she just sits quietly and tries desperately to clear her mind. She knows that it’s possible, of course, to commune with the Force, and to feel the flow of it inside you go from a trickle to a flood. She’d felt it on that snowy battlefield when Kylo Ren had had his lightsaber all but at her throat. Rey has learned, however, that things done in the heat of battle aren’t always easy to recreate when you’re not facing imminent peril.

So when she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, Rey is not expecting the kind of instant calm that overtakes her. “Oh,” she says on an exhale. There’s a rhythm thrumming through her, like the roar of an engine or the breaking of waves on a rocky shore, but instead of making her heart pound in excitement it’s making her feel oddly weightless, like she’s only tethered to the planet conceptually and if she wanted to she could float up into the atmosphere and touch the soft-looking clouds. Rey wonders if this is what Luke feels like all the time; if so, she doesn’t blame him for not being a conversationalist. 

When Rey tells Luke this in a hushed voice, she hears him chuckle in response, equally quiet. “The convergence point makes it much easier to feel the Force around you,” he tells her. “But yes, once you’re fully trained you’ll feel the Force much more acutely.”

Rey sits there with her eyes closed and tries to imagine feeling this way always. “Does it always feel like this?” she asks. “Like you could fly?”

“Not always,” Luke says, and Rey hears him shift on his rock. “The way you experience the Force depends on a variety of factors, as mundane as what space you happen to be physically occupying or what the weather’s like, and as profound as your personal mental conception of the encounter and the general state of the universe.” Luke pauses for a moment. “It could be that there will always be a weightless quality to the way that you experience the Force, and that it will only be tempered and augmented by other factors. It could also be that this is a unique experience for you, and that your later communions with the Force will feel entirely different.”

“Wow,” Rey whispers. “That’s... amazing.” She revels for a moment in the feeling of her spirit being untethered from her body, and the possibility of floating up towards the heavens before she opens her eyes and gazes at Luke. He’s sitting on his rock, eyes closed and back perfectly straight, his hands folded in his lap. There’s so much that he knows that no one else in the whole galaxy could tell her, Rey muses. She wonders where he could have possibly learned it all. She’d never heard the name of any Jedi other than Luke Skywalker, but there were more at some point in the past, she knows. Rey has gleaned that there used to be a Jedi Order made up of hundreds of Jedi, maybe even thousands. All that history, all that tradition. It makes Rey’s heart race to think of it.

“Luke,” she begins haltingly, “who taught you about the Force? Weren’t the Jedi all gone?”

If Luke wasn’t already sitting perfectly still, Rey would swear that she sees him tense up. He’s silent for so long that Rey thinks that this is another one of her questions that will go without an answer. Then, slowly, he says, “Before the rise of the Emperor, the Jedi Order helped maintain peace and order in the galaxy for a thousand years. The Order was destroyed by the nascent Empire around the time of my birth. Almost every Jedi was killed.” Luke pauses here, a flicker of an emotion Rey can’t identify briefly clouding his face before disappearing as if it was never there. “A very few Jedi were able to escape the Empire’s attempt to purge the world of them. Master Obi-Wan and Master Yoda were two of those, and they later became my teachers.”

Obi-Wan. Yoda. Rey tests the names on her tongue, slowly, and finds that they feel familiar. Which is impossible, of course. She’s never even heard their names until this very moment.

“How did you find out that you could be a Jedi?” Rey asks. If Luke’s in an answering mood, she figures she might as well keep asking questions. “Did someone come and find you?”

“Not quite,” Luke says, and there’s a hint of a laugh in his voice. He still hasn’t moved or opened his eyes. “Obi-Wan had been in exile on my home planet, Tatooine. Through a series of highly unlikely events involving an urgent message from Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan and an astromech droid with too much personality and no restraining bolt, Obi-Wan and I met.”

Rey recognizes the mention of General Organa by her old title, and guesses that the astromech in question is probably R2-D2, which makes her smile. Good to know that the droid has always had an overabundance of charisma.

“Do you know what brought us together?” Luke asks.

“The Force?” Rey hazards, because it seems as good an answer as any.

“Say it with more confidence next time, but yes,” Luke says, finally opening his eyes to look shrewdly at her. “There is no such thing as coincidence, Rey. People always meet for a reason.” Rey thinks of Finn, and the unlikely circumstances of their meeting, and can’t keep the smile off of her face. “Obi-Wan and I were meant to meet each other, just like I was meant to be brought together with my sister and Han. Just like you were meant to meet those who will shape your future.”

“And Master Yoda?” Rey asks.

“After his death at the hands of Darth Vader, Obi-Wan came to me in a vision and directed me to the Dagobah system, where Master Yoda was living in exile. It was he who completed my Jedi training.”

“Wait a minute,” Rey says, wide-eyed. “Obi-Wan talked to you after he died?”

The corner of Luke’s mouth ticks upward. “Yes. Maybe you will meet him someday, if you become strong enough in the Force.”

“No way!” Rey says, a grin spreading across her face.

“Way,” Luke replies, and Rey laughs loudly.

Now that she’s got Luke talking, Rey feels every question she’s been bursting to ask come bubbling to the surface, and it takes some effort not to just rattle them all off at once. “So every Jedi has a Padawan, right? Did Obi-Wan and Yoda have any Padawans besides you?”

Luke looks away from her, training his eyes on some point in the middle distance like he’s seeing something that Rey can’t. “Yes, they did. In fact, Obi-Wan was my father’s Master when he was a Padawan learner.” Luke is quiet for a moment, as if to let that fact sink in.

“So Obi-Wan knew your father,” Rey says slowly, her eyes locked on Luke. “He knew him before...” She’s not sure how to finish that sentence, so she lets it hang in the air.

“Yes,” Luke says, closing his eyes again and recentering himself on the rock. “Obi-Wan knew my father for many years, even from the time Anakin was a boy on Tatooine. Obi-Wan saw him grow up, and was a brother to him in many ways.” 

Rey realizes abruptly that she’s getting into very dangerous emotional territory. After all, she’s talking to Luke, a man who exiled himself for fifteen years because one of his Padawans turned to the Dark Side, about Master Obi-Wan, who went into exile for even longer for pretty much the exact same reason. Rey knows she’s not the best with reading people’s emotions, but even she can tell from the sharp set of Luke’s shoulders that he’s uncomfortable.

It’s with trepidation that she pushes forward. “It must have been hard for Obi-Wan, when your father... went to the Dark Side,” Rey says, swallowing in the middle of the sentence.

“Obi-Wan loved my father very much,” Luke tells her, tilting his face towards the sun. “He must have felt a great deal of pain as a result of my father’s actions. He certainly had plenty of time to dwell on that pain during his years in exile. There not’s not much to do on Tatooine.” Luke’s mouth twists in an almost-smile, like this is a joke he’s told before.

“Is that what Jedis do when their Padawans turn to the Dark Side?” Rey tilts her head inquisitively. And then, even though she knows she shouldn’t, she adds, “They run away?”

Luke reopens his eyes and looks at her for a long moment. “That question’s a little on the nose,” he says, and Rey feels herself blush. Well, she grew up in a junkyard with no parents, she reasons. He’ll have to cut her some slack if she’s not fully conversant in social norms. She doesn’t take the question back, deciding that refuge in audacity is her best option here. Instead, she waits for Luke to answer or not.

He sighs deeply and shifts his body to face her more fully. “I’ve pondered that question myself,” he tells her, smiling sadly. “I wondered how Obi-Wan could have walked away when he knew better than anyone the kind of damage that Darth Vader could do. I... understand better now why he had to leave. It wasn’t safe for him to be on an Empire-controlled planet, of course, but it was more than that. Obi-Wan loved my father, and he needed time and space to parcel out his feelings.” Luke turns his intense gaze on Rey once more. “Part of being a Jedi is allowing yourself to experience negative feelings and then having the strength to let them go. Fear, anger, and sadness are a natural part of life, but they are not where a Jedi’s power comes from. I think Obi-Wan needed an opportunity to feel and to release.”

Rey cocks her head and looks directly into Luke’s clear blue eyes. “Is that what you were doing out there?” she asks him. “Letting go?”

Luke smiles at her, but doesn’t reply. 

“Obi-Wan didn’t stay lost, though,” Rey says.

Luke closes his eyes and turns his face back towards the sun. “Neither did I.”

Rey smiles to herself and mimics Luke, lifting her face to the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhhh i love writing rey so much. luke too tbh
> 
> up next: poe realizes that he genuinely has no idea what he's doing. he attempts to enlist help from rey, who knows even less than him


End file.
